Rehkmira vs. The TeleCheck Bastards: Round Three

Fight!

Okay, enough Mortal Combat/Street Fighters lingo. But the title is quite correct. You might recall the other two times we fought. They thought I was someone else; they called me and tried to get me to pay them over the phone with a credit card the first time. Then we played phone tag and I spent a day tied to my apartment waiting for them to call me back. They didn't. I called them, we argued a bit, and they backed off. That was round one.

Then they began calling me in the mornings and telling me about all the bad checks "I" was writing. I repeatedly explained that I wasn't the evil shmuck who was writing the checks, and I asked (again, repeatedly) that they remove my number from their database. After a week or so of this, they backed off. Round two. Now today, we began round three. Allow me to inform you.

I went to Walmart today to buy the yoga mat, and some instant lunches for the office. Side note: Veggies will be a side dish, since I don't want to carry the cooler any more. I'll still snack on them, but I want something hot for lunch. End Note. So I walk directly to the two locations I needed, and find that while they have the lunches, they do not have the yoga mat. No problem, I figure, since I can always borrow one for the class. I also pick out a one-time camera, since I want to take more pictures of the cat. I have a whole seven dollars and something worth of things to buy, and I want to restore my cash before I dip into the emergency funds. So I write the check for twenty dollars over. This, I realize, was the mistake, because it's slightly suspicious. But what the hell.

The kind little lady at the counter says that they declined the check, so I pay with credit, and mutter some possibly shocking language under my breath about how they still think I'm someone else. She caught that, by the way. She said she'd had problems with that as well. In any case, I leave with most of what I wanted, and head for the office, where I call the number on the little slip of paper. It is different from the two TeleCheck numbers I have in my memory bank, but I am not surprised to learn that it's another TeleCheck number. I hang up before I get to a live body, because none of my officemates should ever see me that way.

They know about rounds one and two, so they were eager to witness the confrontation. I let them down.

To make a long story short, the woman I talked with (Cheryl) had me read out every number I had punched into the phone before reaching her, and then told me that "the agency had called my bank and couldn't verify whether there were funds available". We talked some. It wasn't as spectacular as some of the marathon calls I've had with them before, so I'll gloss it over. I don't think they called my bank. I have more than enough money to cover a check for under thirty dollars, and I know this because I really did call the bank, and they told me.

So then, TeleCheck is still the bastard spawn of Satan and a chipmunk, and I still hate them. I'm calling round three a draw, because while they technically won (I didn't get to pay by that check), I now have my own identity, and wasn't called at eight-thirty am on a Saturday. My name hasn't been smeared due to some loose woman's check writing. I emerged unscathed and with another reason to despise the heathen rabble at that company.

Other than that, I have accomplished exactly two items on my list of things to be done today. I observed a class at two, and I went to yoga. Yoga, by the way, is very neat, and I am enjoying it immensely. I used the elliptical machine for a half hour afterwards, and can feel that my gym fee is going to be put to good use.

Next on my list is to post three things for pedagogy 2, do an analysis of comments and grammar test results for pedagogy 1, read for Feminism, revise manuscript, draw up cover letter, obtain large envelopes, and research publishers for creative writing, grade one half of my quota of papers, come up with a topic for my "short" paper (8-10 pg) for pedagogy 1, and come up with a topic for the response paper (see length on previous paper) for Feminism. The manuscript is due Monday, with all its trappings. The grading is all (even the second half) due Monday evening. The papers are due Tuesday. Everything else is due tomorrow.

Sleep is somewhere on the list as well. Kind of toward the bottom right now, but it will move up as soon as I start scratching things off from the top of the list. Kind of like how Princess Buttercup moved to the position of Most Beautiful Woman in the World after all the girls above her died or ate too much chocolate. I love that chapter. Says so much about our society. A great critical analysis of our world. Come to think of it, the whole book is like that, even on its more shallow levels. Read it. That'll be your assignment for the week. The Princess Bride, all of it. The movie's only half as good as the book. The book's funnier. No, really, it is. I'll use it to teach a class some time. Maybe devote the whole first month to the thing. It'll be great, and the students will like it, too. No one I know has disliked The Princess Bride. Introduce yourself in a comment if you fit this rare category. Then I can say that only __ people I know disliked the book.

Oh well. I'm going to go blog on the school section. Have fun peeps.

End.